


Wine, Cheese, Forgiveness

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Apologies, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 06:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: It's Mulder's turn to host the wine and cheese reception.





	Wine, Cheese, Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 5.02 Detour  
> A/N: From a tumblr prompt.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

He knocks on her door later that night. They’ve finally made it to the conference, too late to build a tower of furniture. Agent Stonecypher pouted all through dinner, but at least they haven’t missed the entire day of workshops or the keynote speaker. Mulder knocks again, and finally Scully opens the door. Her hair is wet and she’s already in her pajamas. He doesn’t blame her. Neither of them got much sleep last night in the woods. He holds up a bottle of wine he had to buy at the ABC store and a tray of cheese from the deli of the grocery store a few blocks away.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

She steps back and lets him in. “I believe I recall a reference to some kind of Tailhook crap?”

“That only works the other way,” he says. “This is apology consorting.”

“Hmm,” she says in that skeptical tone.

“I owe you,” he tells her.

“For what?” she asks, and the ‘this time’ is implied.

“I ditched your fun evening to chase mothmen,” he says. “It’s rude to leave someone else holding the wine.”

“That’s true,” she says, crossing her arms, and the lift of her eyebrow asks, ‘Is that all?’

He sits on the bed. “I’m sorry I almost got us killed?”

She waits.

“Again?” he says.

She holds out a hand and takes the bottle. “Did you bring a corkscrew?”

He fumbles in his pants pocket. “The woman at the liquor store reminded me.” He holds out the cheap corkscrew, conveniently omitting that she’d also told him that if he was buying apology wine, he might as well spring for the good stuff, which is why Scully is holding a bottle of something they might actually find drinkable. A crisp white wine: flashbacks to summers on the cape, drinking stolen booze on the dock. He wishes he could take her there; he’d like to see her watch the ocean. Scully uncorks it with the same competence as she takes apart her gun while he struggles with the plastic on the hotel cups. He holds them out and she fills them, more than a dinner party, less than a college party. They tap their glasses together and take a sip. She opens the cheese and nibbles at a square. It is heartening to see her eat, after months of watching her struggle to find anything that could tempt her for more than a few bites. He had been more than half afraid the side effects of the drugs would take her away before the cancer did.

“Good to see you’ve got your appetite back,” he says, nodding at the cheese.

“Not much of a dinner last night,” she says. “Or a breakfast this morning.”

“Right,” he says. “Scully, I…”

He gazes at her and has nothing to say. The air conditioner kicks on, filling the space between them with a rattling whir and the smell of damp dust.

“You picked a decent wine,” she says after he trails off. “I accept your apology.”

“I should haven’t dragged you out there,” he says. 

“Mulder, I wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t wanted to go,” she tells him. “Towers of furniture aren’t exactly my priority either.”

“I shouldn’t have given you a bullshit answer when you asked about death,” he said. “I wasn’t blowing you off. I was blowing death off.”

She shrugs. “I had time to sit with the thought of it getting more and more real,” she says. “I know you didn’t, because you were always still hoping you’d find a solution. And you did.”

“Let’s hope it sticks,” he says.

“Mulder, no solution to any illness is permanent,” she says in her doctor voice. “We all succumb to something in the end. But as far as my doctors are concerned, I should live a normal life.”

“That’s all I ever wanted,” he says.

“Thank you,” she says. 

“I shouldn’t have left you with the wine and cheese,” he says. “You were making an effort. I got scared things were changing.”

“It’s fine,” she says, but she’s looking at the pallid pastel landscape on the wall that passes for art. 

“It’s not fine,” he insists. “I should have celebrated with you.”

“First case back,” she says. “I wanted to mark the occasion.” 

“I should have stayed,” he repeats, and takes a swallow of wine. 

“It’s not every day I have a near-death experience,” she says in a small, wry voice.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, and she nods, and sets her cup down deliberately (still half-full, he notes, with the part of his brain that turns everything into evidence), and reaches for him. He sets down his own cup just in time to gather her onto his lap and meet her mouth with his. Let lips do as hands do, he thinks, a fragment of Shakespeare spiraling out of the depths of his mind, but his hands are already up under her shirt, guided by her hands, her palms flat over the backs of his hands, and there are years of dreams coming to fruition all at once and it’s too fast for this immense thing to happen, this culmination that he wanted to savor, but he won’t slow her down any more.   
She asks and he answers, wordlessly. Together they redeem her body, every inch of her that was examined and prodded and measured and charted. They communicate, unspoken. Their bodies say everything that needs to be expressed. He doesn’t have to ask what she wants; she tells him, silently and aloud, and they remind each other of the joys of the flesh, so long overlooked by the two of them as they investigated every other mystery.

In the morning, they shower separately, in their separate rooms, and go to seminars to teach them how to work together. He fingers the sore spot on his lip where she bit him, overcome by passion, and smiles to himself. 

There’s more wine in the bottle. There’s more cheese in her mini fridge. They’ve got years of living ahead of them. They might as well live well.


End file.
